


Their Way

by Cosmic_Biscuit



Category: Tiger and Bunny
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Biscuit/pseuds/Cosmic_Biscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can't really decide if they're friends, and they're certainly not lovers... but maybe they can be family of a sort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Up the fire escape, over the roof ledge, across the tar, and jump. They both reach the next rooftop -she lands in a puddle and doesn't care, he avoids it- and bounce from wall to wall to reach the ground before they take off running again. She likes to throw in a wall spin at the last moment before landing, which always makes him laugh.

He's holding back to let her keep up. It annoys her, sometimes, because it reminds her that she's still growing, but most of the time, she finds she likes his dedication to their synchronicity. It makes her feel less like he's doing this because he feels he has to, and more like because he wants to.

Dash vault over the footbridge wall and down into the trees; they use the branches like springboards for an eagle flip and hit the grass running, their momentum barely even slowing for that brief moment.

There's nothing to bother them when they go out like this. No cameras, no crowds of fans, no other heroes. By the time they hit this point in their run, they've both gotten too fast for any flashes or annoyances to keep up anyway. The whistle of wind and the pounding of their blood in their ears are the only sounds that matter; the path ahead of them and their proximity to each other are the only things they see. It's nice to have a distraction from the distractions.

They take the hillside stairs three at a time, and the railings when even that's too slow. They barely touch the sidewalk when they get to the top, surprising a couple on a stroll, and she waves apologetically behind her as they make their next leap, using a lamppost as a launching point to get past stopped traffic in the mere seconds before the light changes. Up a retaining wall, across a drainage gully, and over a fence, they keep pushing harder and harder until they're covered in sweat and grinning like wild dogs at play.

They finally come to a stop back where they'd started the mad dash: beside his car. Their lungs are burning as they touch base on the passenger side mirror, then he goes to open the trunk and pass her a water bottle. They sit quietly, leaning against the cool metal and savoring the ache in their muscles of a night's hard work as their minds calm from the rush.

"Same time next week?" she asks, and peeks in his direction through her wind-scruffed hair. There's always some tiny part of her afraid that this time will be the one that he says no, that he's too busy, that he doesn't want to do this anymore.

But he gives her one of those rare fond smiles that usually only his partner is allowed to have, and it makes a warmth bloom in her chest as he reaches over and lightly brushes her hair back into at least a vague sort of order with his fingers. "Wouldn't miss it. Come on, I'll take you home."

They ride in silence, broken only by the radio, and she rests her head against the window, smiling.


	2. Identity

He looked up from his just-completed phone call to find Pao-lin standing by his table, looking fidgety and uncomfortable. “May I help you?”

“Um… I need to ask something personal.”

That came as a mild surprise. While they did talk more often since his return, when their schedules allowed, Barnaby would have hardly put himself on any list of people that his fellow hero kept for such matters. “Go ahead.”

“Will you go shopping with me?”

His confusion must have shown that time, because she hurriedly continued. “Normally I’d go with Nathan or Karina, but they’re both stuck in meetings all day, and Natasha says I still have to have a chaperone.”

“Why don’t you ask her to go with you, then?” Pao-lin just fidgeted more, tugging at her shirt as she stared at the floor, and he realized what kind of shopping she was implying. He still wasn't sure why that meant she couldn't ask Natasha, or why she _would_ ask _him_ , but it wasn’t like his own schedule was especially full that day, since Kotetsu’d been forced to cancel on lunch. Slipping his phone in his pocket, he got up to take his coffee cup to the garbage. “All right, then, where would you like to go?”

 

After a few incidents of being rather forcibly approached by fans of his, they’d finally succeeded in finding a shop that was relatively secluded. The ladies had been rather rude, though, at least until they realized who was escorting their customer. After that, they’d been all smiles and assistance. However, Pao-lin still seemed to be extremely uncomfortable.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” she mumbled, her face a little pink, and she grabbed the next armful from an attendant and fled into the dressing room.

He was beginning to get a bit curious, but he bit his tongue to keep from asking. While navigating awkward conversations without rehearsed cues still eluded him at times, he had a feeling that pressing the issue the way Kotetsu tended to do wouldn't go over well right now. Especially in a lingerie shop. So he just hung back and let her go back and forth between the changing rooms and the shelves as she struggled to find something she liked, until he noticed that her eyes kept darting in one direction whenever she came back out to hand over what she didn't want. Looking that way, he saw a much simpler collection than the ruffles she’d been pointed to by the shop ladies, mostly stocked with binders and shorts for athletes. “If you’d prefer that, why don’t you get a few sets?”

“Um... well, because it’s not… It’s not _right_ ,” she said quietly, even redder now that she’d been caught.

_Oh._

_That_ was the problem.

 _Now_ he understood why she hadn’t wanted Natasha to be the one to take her out. The woman seemed more understanding than most of the handlers Barnaby had met, but she still had a habit of enforcing parental wishes, and discretion only went so far when it came to arguments in hallways. He sympathized with the search for a personal identity, certainly, and maybe _that_ was why she'd picked him, but he still wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to respond to this. He couldn't just let the matter drop, though; the miserable expression on her face pulled at him in a way it probably wouldn’t have a couple of years ago, and after a little more thinking, he got an idea.

“You know…” he said, picking up a binder to casually inspect its construction. “That stuff you’ve got would probably not be at all comfortable during gym training. You need something to fight in.”

“Well… yeah…” she admitted.

"And fighting is still your draw for now, isn't it?"

"That's true. But still, I-" He got his wallet out of his pocket and she blinked in confusion when he handed her a credit card. "What's this for?"

“Make sure you give me the receipt for your second set of purchases, and ask for them to be wrapped,” he said with just a little too much practiced boredom, and she stared at him for a few seconds before figuring out what he was telling her. There were no hugs involved, which he was grateful for, since that would have just been _strange_ in their current setting but the smile that seemed to remain permanently spread across her face as she began sifting through the clothing for her sizes was more than a suitable substitute.


	3. A Moment of Quiet

Three bombings in two days, and all of them, first and second stringers alike, been running ragged trying to keep civilians out of harm’s way and assist the medic teams in getting to those who didn’t evacuate in time.

If the revelation of Maverick’s actions had had one unexpected negative effect, it was that now people believed any crime that was too big and flashy must have been staged, and therefore they weren’t in any real danger.

They were wrong.

Barnaby is stressing the worst out of all of them, and none of them need to ask why. They’d all seen that damned sword and snake mark on the remains of the second bomb when the police had brought the shrapnel out. Whether it’s over losing such a useful outlet as HeroTV or something else entirely, the gauntlet’s been thrown, and the fact that he might have information locked in his head that could help them fight is eating at everyone, but him the most.

The cops are grilling him again when she enters the tent that’s been acting as field command, and Tiger is nowhere to be seen. She scowls a little at that. Sure, Kotetsu could have been legitimately busy elsewhere this time, but she’s seen him lead off on obvious distractions too many times to take anything at face value.

“I’m telling you, I don’t have anything new,” Barnaby is saying when she approaches. His voice is quieter and weaker than she’s ever heard him before, and the deep circles under his eyes and tremor in his hands have gotten more pronounced. He’s not going to last much longer under the pressure and sleep deprivation, and they’ve found out the hard way before what happens when someone makes him push too hard on the mental blocks Maverick left in his head. Her scowl deepens and she pushes her way into the crowd.

“That’s enough.”

One of the senior officers gives her a slightly dismissive look, one she gets a lot for being the youngest hero and hates. “Miss-“

Static crackles around the machines and lights in the room in a clear warning. “I said _out_. He’ll contact you if he remembers anything, got it?”

Barnaby is still staring hollowly at the empty air in front of him when they leave, and she has to wave a hand in front of his face before he finally raises his head. ”Kid?”

His eyes are empty, _drained_ , and she fights down a shiver.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, and he barely manages a small nod at the permission before he slumps forward. Despite the weight of his armor, she manages to catch him before he can hit the floor and carefully leans him to the side instead so he can rest a little more comfortably on the bench. Sending a quick note off to Tiger to get over ther right now, she sits down next to the older blond and reaches up to keep a protective hand on his shoulder, just in case the cops came back.

Because heroes are there to protect the people, but now she understands how much they have to look out for each other, too.


	4. Sick Leave

She eyes him warily as he comes into the hospital room with a bag, having seen him talking to Natasha outside. “I don’t _care_ if you’ve got super-speed, you’re _not_ making me take it,” she says flatly.

“That’s a rude way to greet someone who went to all the effort of getting those duck soup bao you like so much,” he replies with a raised eyebrow, holding up the paper bag.

Her mouth waters when the smell hits her nose. Between her all the junk in her throat and, well, _hospital food_ , everything’s tasted like _cardboard_ for _days_. “I’m sorry, you’re totally my best friend,” she says, putting as sweet a batted eye into it as she can.

Judging by the way he snorts, the attempt is more comical than endearing, but he takes a seat by the bed and hands over the bag and a capped cup.

She tears into the buns with gusto, not caring in the _slightest_ about manners at this point, and gets through four before having to stop for air and a swig of what turns out to be some kind of sweetened juice. She’s making her way through the fifth one when she finally notices the faint smirk on his face. “What?” she asks, suspicion creeping in.

He just smirks wider. “Congratulations. You took most of your medication without even flinching.”

She blinks at him, then looks at the bun in her hand. No, nothing weird about-

Hold up. The juice.

She picks up the cup again and uncaps it. Nothing looks strange about it either. Scowling in thought, she swirls the dark liquid in the cup a little to see if that causes anything to look suspicious, then hesitantly takes a sip. “You’re full of it. There’s nothing in here.”

“Natasha dumped the dosage in before I brought it to you.”

Another sip.

If he’s not pranking her _now_ … “It’s… not bad,” she admits. “How did you know it wouldn’t taste weird?”

“Samantha always pulled the honey and cherry juice trick on me when I was a kid,” he says with a shrug and a smile that’s only briefly sad. “Eventually it got to the point where even though I knew she was only giving it to me because there was something in it, I didn’t mind. When I overheard your parents complaining because you wouldn’t take anything, I thought it might work for you, too.”

“Hm.” She swishes the cup again, then gives him a mock glare. “You’re still on the hook for being a _sneak_ , though. Penalty is that you have to bring me lunch every day that I’m here.”

He makes an amused noise. “I am grateful for your kind leniency,” he says wryly and leans back in the chair to make himself more comfortable.

Satisfied, she gives a nod too imperious and firm to be serious, then polishes off the rest of the juice in one gulp.


End file.
